Scylla and Charybdis
by Mecha-Foot
Summary: In the moments before their other classmates are brought in, Kiriyama has a proposition for Kawada.  Gen


Disclaimer: Don't own Battle Royale, making no money, purely for entertainment, slight license taken with Kiriyama, so he's probably a bit out of character.

Summary and notes: Movie-verse, set right before the regular kids are brought in. A moment of understanding between Kawada and Kiriyama, and a proposition. The title refers to the Greek myth of a narrow strait with the snake-headed, dog-bodied, fish-tailed sea monster Scylla on one side and a whirlpool creating nymph-turned-monster Charybdis on the other, from whence we get the phrase, "caught between a rock and hard place," because it was apparently too hard to say, "caught between Scylla and Charybdis." Reviews, please.

"Ah. Yes. You must be Male Student no. 5, Kawada Shogo, correct?" the soldier tapped his pen against the clipboard. I stared at him with pitying eyes. Did I _look_ like a Shogo? He quailed under my glare and nervously looked at his clipboard again.

"Kiri—Kiriyama Kazuo?" he tried again. His voice was shaky. Good. He was afraid of me. I let a slow, maniacal grin grace my face and the soldier was all but quaking in his cheaply made boots. "Right. I... need to put this around your neck, okay?" He clutched a thin, silver metal necklace or collar in his sweaty right hand. I stood up straighter and lifted my chin a little.

"Right," he repeated and stepped behind me. I rolled my eyes. It would be easier than breathing—though judging by the soldier standing behind me, breathing was a laborious exercise—to kill this irritating little man. I had a belt (a part of the tacky looking school uniform I'd been forced into—regulations, Kitano said), I could strangle him. I could probably snap his neck, too, without very much effort. Lucky for this sot I was feeling generous right then. There would be plenty of time for killing later, unless my understanding of the Program was way off. The soldier slipped the collar around my neck with shaky hands. I felt like somebody's girlfriend. Though I doubt anyone ever gave his girlfriend a necklace packed with explosives.

The soldier fiddled with the collar for a few moments. There was a crackling noise, a beep, and a brief shock swept through my body. I knew at that point that the collar was activated. It wouldn't come off until three days later, when I was done killing everyone. While I found it galling to be under someone's total control, (according to my research, the soldiers at the headquarters could detonate the collar anytime they wanted to) I figured I might as well play along.

The sweating, scared soldier left the room, leaving me alone. Wait. Not quite alone. There was a boy huddled in the corner. I hadn't noticed him before. He was unconscious, but he had a collar on too, so I realized he must be playing as well. Did he sign up like me? If not, why was he here early? Shouldn't he have been brought in with the rest of the class? He was curled up, but I could see he was heavily muscled, with a slightly thuggish face. His forehead was covered with a dingy yellow bandanna that seemed somewhat familiar, and as I watched him, he moaned in his sleep.

"Kei..." he rolled over and sighed. "Keiko..."

This boy suddenly fascinated me intensely. Who was Keiko? A logical explanation would be a girlfriend, but his sigh was too pain-filled for that. If I still talked—I stopped the pointless exercise around the time I entered middle school and realized people were afraid of me—I'd love to ask this fighter (since it was so obvious that's what is was) who Keiko is/was, but I don't want to wake him. He probably wouldn't talk back to me. I sat on the cold concrete floor, facing him, my arms stiff behind my back, supporting me. The room was empty except for the two of us (Kitano told me the students would be arriving within the hour). I realized this boy must be the other one the terrified soldier spoke of, Kawada Shogo. Idly, I wondered why he wore that familiar yellow bandanna. He didn't seem like the type to wear it just to look the part of a badass. I was neat-fingered enough to remove the bandanna to see what was underneath, I was sure. I stalked carefully across the room. He had stopped moaning and thrashing in his sleep and slept peacefully on his back. When I was about four inches from his face, I remembered where I'd seen that bandanna.

I was out at the marketplace near my apartment for food about a year ago. There was a burned-out electronics shop on the corner that hawked TVs, radios, and any manner of tired, beat up gadgets. The news was on one of the battered TVs; I had stopped for a moment to watch it. After the weather, the newscaster straightened his tie self-importantly and said, "And we have a winner from this year's Battle Royale Survival Program." He cleared his throat, and they cut to a shot of a boy, probably about fourteen (but still with stubble) sandwiched between two soldiers on a military convoy. He was bleeding; I could see it soaking through his shirt. The boy had a faraway look in his eyes, like something had recently torn him up inside. I had guessed it was having to kill his classmates, though I must admit I couldn't empathize. He had a cut on his forehead too, self-bandaged with a yellow bandanna.

Aha. That's where I've seen that bandanna before. So it looks like our Shogo Kawada here has been chosen for another year of the Program. How lucky.

I was still curious to see what was underneath the yellow bandanna, so I carefully lifted Kawada's head. I doubted I needed to be careful, though. The drugs they put in your system are bound to be pretty strong. And since he wasn't conscious, like I was, I assumed the government had taken him by force to participate. Still, I was cautious. I slipped the bandanna up, exposing a long, thin scar that ran from an inch into his hairline (no hair grew on the scar tissue) to the outside corner of his eyebrow. I lightly traced it with my finger.

Despite my attempts to be careful, he stirred. I quickly replaced the bandanna and soundlessly leapt away from him. By the time his eyes had truly focused on his surroundings, I was sitting motionless on a desk.

He looked first at his surroundings, then at me, from head to toe. His eyes fixed upon my metal collar. It slowly dawned on the fighter. His fingers unwilling reached up to his own neck. They met cool metal. He smiled a bitter, sardonic smirk and muttered, "Mother fucker."

"I was thinking on the boat-ride over," I started. It hurt to talk. I hadn't spoken, hadn't really made a sound since I was twelve, when I killed my father, so I supposed my larynx was all but atrophied, but this was more important than pain. He narrowed his eyes and glared at me. "I suppose you couldn't, could you? When they drugged you, did it remind you of last time? Did you dream?" For a split-second surprise touched his face—just barely, in the way his eyebrows raised and his eyes opened up just a bit wider.

"You're wondering how I know you won the Program three years ago?" I interpreted. "They have trading cards of all the past winners. I've got 'em all in a shoebox at home. You and Tohru Takinawa are worth quite a bit now, did you know that?" The surprise in his face had subtly changed. Now he was surprised and pissed off. "Forgive me my joke, Kawada. Really, I just saw the segment three years ago when they broadcast the winner—you. You haven't changed much," I added, almost fondly. "But back to business.

"I have a proposition for you." His glared sharpened to outright dislike, but he wasn't turning away. He was listening. I considered this license to continue.

"When we leave the building, you and I will split and work our way around this island, slaughtering indiscriminately. How long do you think this teenage filth will last, caught between Scylla and Charybdis? A day? Half a day? I doubt a one of them has ever seen death outside the movies and the arcade. Then, when it is just the two of us… we play until one or both of us is dead. Imagine it," I whispered. I'm sure my eyes were sparking with a fierce sort of love-hate-insanity. "The two of us, locked in a deadly end-game. To be honest I'm not sure which of us would win… I'm hardly even interested. This is the sort of fight that the gods themselves can't tear their eyes from."

He carefully considered me, then threw a hard left hook that caught me on the corner of my mouth and made me stumble back a few steps. I licked at the seam of my lips, tasting the too-sweet copper of blood and rejection. My eyes moved deliberately from his feet to the yellow bandanna wrapped around his forehead, then came to rest on his eyes, dark with anger, disgust, loathing, and maybe a drop of fear mixed in at the very back. Nothing had changed. He may not have agreed to my plan, but I knew that he wouldn't be killed by any of our wimpy "classmates." If Shogo Kawada was to die, it would be by my hand alone.

"See you at the finish line, Kawada-kun," I promised, almost warmly.


End file.
